


The way you fall

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Future Tense, M/M, POV Second Person, Pretentious, Run-On Sentences, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-07
Updated: 2005-10-07
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3635307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Remus, it will always be too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The way you fall

**Author's Note:**

> For angelgazing, who likes second person. Happy belated birthday!

You will think in clichés when it happens ( _I’ve never felt like this before_ ; _I never saw it coming_ ) and part of you will even believe they’re true, but you will know – you've _always_ known, deep down in your bones where all true knowledge resides (ache and creak and break and knit with each waxing of the moon, this is where the wolf lives, if the wolf isn’t you, and you swear it’s not but it is it is _it is_ , or at least they will think so when they let fear overwhelm good sense and begin to shut you out, but _he_ will never be afraid, not even when he should be, and you will love him for it, let it buoy you up when everything else drags you down, until he takes you so far down you think you will never get up, but you will) that it was inevitable from the day you met. Oh, not in some ridiculous love at first sight, soulmates until the end of time way (you will wonder if he even has a soul to lose to the dementors when the time comes, and you will ignore the whispers inside your own head that say your soul is as dark as his, dark creature that you are), but in the way you want, you have always _wanted_ , especially what you’re not supposed to have, and you’re not supposed to have anything, and he is everything anyone could ever want in one convenient package (black hair like silken night skies and eyes like cold pale stars that shine with dangerous knowledge and emotion, lips curved like cupid’s bow, potent and red as that first apple offered by the snake to Eve) waiting for you to take him. You, made up of nothing but want, need, darkness already staining your soul, will never be able to resist him, apotheosis of desire, even when resistance is the smartest path and you have always prided yourself on being clever ( _too clever by half, Moony_ , and how can you resist the name, calling something deep inside you, beneath the stupid schoolboy charm that gets old after the first week, he wears the edges off the name until it slides over your skin like fine silk, expensive cashmere, the brush of lip and breath and tongue when he kisses you, _Moony Moony Moony_ , and you want to forget you even have another name lurking just beneath the skin).

You will fall as he falls, and he will be king in hell, or at least in Azkaban, and you will fade to grey-brown nothingness, eking out a meager existence ridding others of their ghosts and boggarts, but their demons, and yours, will remain. You have no skill to exorcise the past, the sudden memory of olive skin and white teeth, long skilled fingers and careless smiles meant only for you ( _You must have known, Lupin. Got a cell with your name on it. I hear the dementors like your kind_ , and you will deny him three times before rescue arrives in the form of Albus Dumbledore, and if he knows you are not innocent -- never that -- he also knows you are not guilty of _this_ and how did he not know Sirius _was_? You will never actually ask the question but you’ll know he reads it in your mind every time you meet, the twinkle in his eye dimming for one brief moment as you think defiant thoughts behind your false and pleasant façade) will always bring you up short, though you will learn over the years to hide it, hide everything. It will be easy because there will be no one close enough to show interest; everyone who ever cared will be dead or in Azkaban, and you will prefer it that way, moving like a ghost through people’s lives, a cold shiver, a reminder that even the ones you love most can betray you and you’ll never know until it’s too late.

And for you it will always be too late, from the moment he looks up at the mistletoe, cocks an eyebrow and says, _Dare you, Moony_ , and you take the dare because you can’t _not_ , not and live with yourself, live with him, so you will lean in and press your mouth to his, warm and tasting of laughter and butterbeer and reckless, ageless youth, and in that moment, breathing the same air, hearts racing in time, you will fall long and hard and you will never stop falling, and twenty years later you will finally watch him fall as well, and you will never be able to catch him.


End file.
